SINGAPORE - Twenty-two secondary schools will be merged into 11 schools by 2018, said the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Friday (March 4).

This is the largest merger that has taken place in the last five years.

Next year (2017), the seven schools that MOE had earlier announced would not have a Secondary 1 cohort in 2016 - Balestier Hill Secondary, Henderson Secondary, MacPherson Secondary, North View Secondary, Pioneer Secondary, Siglap Secondary and Si Ling Secondary - will be merged with seven other schools.

MOE said that this move is due to the falling cohort sizes of secondary school students. It said that a "sufficient critical mass" is needed for a school to offer a good range of educational programmes and co-curricular activities for its students. The names of the new secondary schools have not been decided yet.

Four merged schools also began operations in 2016. They are Fajar Secondary, Ping Yi Secondary, Bartley Secondary and Tanglin Secondary.

The Straits Times

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